Here is my take on Israel’s present engagement in Lebanon, or the matzav, as my friend Brad and most Israeli Jews say.
To understand what’s going on, rewind for a minute. Back to before Hamas militants captured Corporal Gilad Shalit. The Palestinians elect a Hamas-dominated parliament. Israel immediately cuts off all aid and relations with the Palestinians, and the U.S. and Europe follow suit. Olmert puts forth his Convergence Plan:
In its most expansive version Olmert proposed that Israel annex approximately 10 percent of the West Bank, including settlements and historic areas in East Jerusalem, along a perimeter defined more or less by the separation barrier now being constructed in the West Bank. Israel would expand settlements west of the barrier and withdraw its settlers from the remaining areas–72 settlements with a current population of close to 60,000… maintaining exclusive security control over these territories as well as over the border crossing points to Jordan.
In addition, Olmert announces a plan to annex the Jordan River Valley. This plan would cut the Palestinians off completely from Jerusalem and leave them with a West Bank divided into two blocks of territory attached by a very narrow strip of land, and completely enclosed within Israel’s borders. Electronic Intifada has posted a map constructed using the GPS.
Olmert announces that he will negotiate with the Palestinians before making final border decisions, but the prerequisite is that they recognize Israel unconditionally, renounce violence, and disarm - in other words, capitulate and surrender.
Behind the convergence plan was Israel’s calculation that, with the election of a Hamas government, it held the upper hand both militarily and diplomatically. The separation wall would protect Israel from future bomb attacks; and the international powers could hardly insist that Israel reach a negotiated settlement with a government run by what they, themselves, had branded a terrorist organization… |inline
